The two girls crack up laughing as they listen to a recording of themselves singing a song they learned in Grant High School’s choir mixed with lyrics from a boy band. One covers her face with a pillow in mock embarrassment. The other bursts into laughter.
Seniors Katie Kimsey-Bennett and Pan Suraseranee have known each other for less than a year, but in that time they’ve become best friends. Suraseranee is a foreign exchange student from Thailand, staying in the house Kimsey-Bennett has known her whole life.
When Suraseranee stepped off the plane at Portland International Airport back in August, she knew it wouldn’t be easy to settle into a new school. Her English was hard for most to understand and the world around her was confusing.
Kimsey-Bennett, born with a cognitive disability, has lived under similar circumstances her entire life. As an infant, she was put up for adoption in her birthplace of Busan, South Korea. At eight months, she had open heart surgery to patch a hole in her atrium.
Two weeks after the surgery, she was on a plane headed for the United States. Her new family was sitting with her. Sally Kimsey and Sterling Bennett had adopted their first child, Jesse, from the same country and through the same program three years earlier. Now, the four of them were on their way back to Portland.
As she grew, Kimsey-Bennett started to miss developmental milestones – crawling, walking and speaking. Initially, her parents wrote it off as side effects from her surgery, but it soon became clear that something else was different.
By age three, Kimsey-Bennett was identified for early intervention and began a chain of special needs programs within Portland Public Schools. She started taking half-day support classes and attended a daycare that focused on speech services. For kindergarten she went to Alameda Elementary School.
After two years, she was moved to Applegate where she enjoyed “a very dynamic and wonderful teacher,” according to her mom. But the principal wanted the classroom space for an after school program, so Kimsey-Bennett was pushed out of the school after just one year. “She had developed a relationship with the teacher and that was all gone,” says Kimsey.
Students in special education often move around more than the general population, making it difficult to establish the sense of classroom community that is built over the years.
In response to the Applegate program shift, Kimsey wrote a scathing letter to the principal. With a background in law at Willamette University, she explained that the move was unfair, unethical and might even be a violation of her daughter’s constitutional rights.
“We are pretty involved and active parents,” Bennett says now.
“Some of Katie’s teachers over the years might have thought I was a little bit of a pest,” Kimsey adds, laughing, but “it’s important for any student, particularly for special ed students because they are often not able to communicate themselves.”
But Kimsey-Bennett has always been able to develop strong relationships in school, both with teachers and other students, on her own. “She is pretty personable, once she warms up to somebody,” says her father.
She has competed in the Special Olympics and was awarded a total of eight medals for swimming and softball. She also played softball with Wilshire Little League throughout her childhood.
But what she’s really passionate about is singing. In fourth grade, she joined choir at King Elementary School. “I was really nervous, because I didn’t know a lot of people,” says Kimsey-Bennett.
It didn’t take long for her to fall in love with singing. She participated in choir throughout middle school and was quick to join Grant’s girls’ choir, the Choralaires, when she arrived as a freshman.
Senior Olivia Morgan has been singing with Kimsey-Bennett since then and has always noticed her enthusiasm for choir. “Every day, she’s excited to be involved,” says Morgan. Sometimes it can be difficult, she says, but “everyone supports everyone” in Acapella choir, where Kimsey-Bennett has been for the last two years.
John Eisemann is the instructor of the choir programs at Grant this year and has seen firsthand how Kimsey-Bennett is dedicated and passionate about singing. “Sometimes it can be challenging for Katie to keep up with the pace of the class, but that’s what her friends are for,” Eisemann says. “Ultimately, Katie is intelligent and self-aware about her own priorities.”
In early March, Kimsey-Bennett brought home an application for the Solo and Ensemble Competition. She had approached Eisemann, explaining that she wanted to take part in the annual competition where students present a piece in front of a judge, family and peers. The goal is to provide constructive feedback for young singers. “I am extremely proud of Katie for participating in the event. It was wonderful to see her advocating for herself,” says Eisemann.
But when Kimsey-Bennett’s turn arrived, she froze. “Katie can be pretty reserved if she’s not really comfortable in a situation,” says Kimsey. “She was hesitant to start singing.”
When one of the judges offered to sing with her, Kimsey-Bennett opened up. The lyrics of “Angels Ever Bright and Fair” filled the auditorium as the two sang together in harmony. “It was an incredibly moving moment,” says Kimsey.
Susan Sailor, a teacher’s assistant in the life skills classroom, has worked with Kimsey-Bennett for four years at Grant. Every morning, Kimsey-Bennett is welcomed off the bus by Sailor with an “air hug.” They check in before class, covering all sorts of things.
Last year, Sailor took students individually to an accounting firm on Broadway where they helped with a variety of tasks, including shredding and filing papers and putting out cookies and coffee. Every once in a while they would miss the bus and have to walk all the way back to Grant. “Katie would do nothing but laugh and tell jokes all the way home,” Sailor says.
Kimsey-Bennett has also worked for Meals On Wheels and the Red Cross. Her dream is to work in a hospital or be an ice skating teacher, which is something she was drawn to by watching people at the rink at Lloyd Center.
Every Wednesday, she walks to the mall to see the ice skaters and to explore, practicing life skills that are hard to master in a classroom. Handling money and change, for example, are best learned through independent experience. “We just keep encouraging her to give new things a try,” says Bennett.
This school year, she took on the role of a sister.
The family has hosted foreign exchange students before, but never long enough for Kimsey-Bennett to build any lasting relationships. Most of their international students have stayed for two or four weeks.
Suraseranee, who goes by Pan, is near the end of her stay in Portland. She says coming to America is “the dream of everybody” in Thailand, just to experience part of the culture. When she arrived last August, she hit the ground running. It was hard at first, she says, because “you can’t speak English correctly, you don’t have any friends.”
But after the first couple weeks of self-conscious silence, she began immersing herself in all things red, white and blue. This spring, she played left field for Grant’s JV softball team. Earlier in the year, she acted in the school musical, “Grease.” She’s been involved in choir for the entire year.
It wasn’t hard for Suraseranee to make new friends because she wears a smile constantly. One of the first people she connected with was Lars Franzelli, a Swiss foreign exchange student in the same program. “She was so open,” he says, “just so happy.”
When school first started, Franzelli also felt awkward. “You don’t really know that many people in the beginning,” he says.
But Kimsey recognizes a key difference between Franzelli and Suraseranee’s experiences. “Kids from Europe have an easier time with it because the culture is so similar to ours,” she says. Suraseranee doesn’t get that luxury.
She grew up in Prachuap Khiri Khan, a small city on the Gulf of Thailand. Ninety percent of the population there is Buddhist, including Suraseranee’s family. Handing out food and gifts to traveling monks and paddling through the canals of Bangkok were regular events for her.
About 150 miles from the capitol, Prachuap Khiri Khan hugs the sea and is a fairly quiet city, according to Pan. Suraseranee’s mother, Jeab, is well known there. She has taught Thai in the public school system for more than 30 years. “A lot of people in my city know me and my mom,” says Suraseranee.
Jeab says the house has lacked laughter ever since Suraseranee left. “I was worried because Pan never stayed away from home,” she says. “On the other hand, I thought it would be a very good experience for her.”
Unlike public school in Portland, her Thai high school didn’t offer much flexibility regarding class schedules. Courses are assigned to students for the most part, instead of having the freedom and flexibility of choosing. When Suraseranee started school in America, she was determined to make it fun. This year, most of her classes are in the arts.
“She’s got this drive to try a little bit of everything,” says art teacher Melody Rockwell. “She’s here for the experience.”
Suraseranee agrees. She says trying everything that she possibly can has brought her far from where she was at the beginning of the year. Suraseranee threw herself into the American experience through art, theater and softball, which she’d never even heard of before coming to Portland. “I see somebody do it,” she says. “Why can I not do it?”
She has also become more independent. “In Thailand, I never walk or go anywhere alone. But here I have to do it,” says Suraseranee. “I think it’s good for me.”
Kimsey-Bennett is in the same boat. “She is strong-willed. She wants to succeed. She wants to have a career; be independent,” says her father. “What we want to do is find a way to support that.”
As a graduating senior, Kimsey-Bennett expects to take advantage of the district’s promise to offer services through age 21. She will also continue attending PHAME Academy, a fine and performing arts school for adults with developmental disabilities where she’s been taking classes for almost a year.
At the end of June, Pan Suraseranee will board a jet and head back to Thailand. It will be the end of a 10-month stay in Portland for the 17-year-old, a bittersweet culmination of a successful foreign exchange program. “Pan is such a sweet, caring person,” says Bennett, “It’s nice for Katie to have a sister.”
What will her host sister miss most when Suraseranee leaves? “Talking with her,” says Kimsey-Bennett, “and laughing.” ♦
